north riding lessons

Yes, well, where was I; Saturday morning. So, there I was, stood with the stable girl as the children had their riding lesson. ‘When do you think they’ll get real horses?’ I asked. ‘Rupert prefers to start with the simulator’, she explained, ‘it keeps the insurance premiums down’. I nodded in understanding. ‘So how’s business?’ I asked. ‘OK’, she said, ‘but Rupert has booked me to give some lessons for that southern downshifter’s children, you know, the one with the blog, life in the north or something I think it's called’. ‘But that’s great isn’t it?’ I suggested, nervously. My stable girl friend wasn’t so sure. ‘I’ve read her blog’, she said. ‘She regards us working folk as little more than dancing bears to entertain the folks back home and sell more copies of her book’, she said. ‘You know, if she was here now I bet she’d even report this whole conversation in her blog’. ‘Well’, I said, ‘that’s journalism my dear’. She shook her head. ‘Living my life and doing my job in my own home town wasn't a news story before she turned up here and it isn't now’, she said. ‘What she does is just happy slapping in tweeds’.

I looked down and shuffled my feet and we both turned back to the girls. There had been a bit of a mishap and Tilly was holding her horse’s head under her arm, and the rest of the horse under the other arm. She started to cry. ‘You wouldn’t leave me crying when there’s room on your horse for two would you Milly?’ she pleaded to her sister. ‘Yes', said Milly, 'F**k off Tilly!’ Suddenly the sound of galloping hooves could be heard approaching along the beach. The next moment a great white horse came into view, its rider’s fair hair flowing in the wind, a cloud of spray from the sea whipping up around it. The horse came to a halt in the yard. ‘Ayup girls!’ said the rider, ‘jump on!’. My daughters dropped their hobby horses and leapt aboard. ‘Back in a while Mrs Super’, called the rider, as she pulled on the reins, turned the horse and galloped off towards the horizon. ‘But Milly’ I cried out after my vanishing beloved children, ‘you’ve got the car keys!’. I turned back towards the stable girl. ‘Who was that masked metaphor?’ I asked, but she was reaching into her bag for lunch. Her arm emerged and she turned towards me holding something up. ‘Fancy an apple?’ she said.